


someday i might tire

by bevvie



Series: i've cherished every kiss (savored every moment) [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Child Abuse, Families of Choice, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Injury, Lesbian Beverly Marsh, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 09:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21353839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bevvie/pseuds/bevvie
Summary: Suddenly everything is okay. Alvin Marsh is passed out drunk on the recliner in front of the TV, Sonia Kaspbrak is conked out on Ambien as she takes the full space of a bed made for two, Margaret and Wentworth Tozier went to bed unaware of where their son ended up for the night, and still, as Eddie’s careful fingers replace the ice on Beverly’s eye, in the soft lamplight, Beverly has never felt better. She tells her boys as such.--Beverly comes to Richie and Eddie in her time of need, before and after.
Relationships: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: i've cherished every kiss (savored every moment) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546441
Comments: 8
Kudos: 123





	someday i might tire

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first finished fic ive published in a while, which im fairly happy about. the friendships between bev and her losers mean a lot to me, so ive been wanting to write something for them for a very long time. title is from wired wrong by steam powered giraffe (ive had vice quadrant on repeat for the past few days lol)
> 
> content warnings: referenced but not on-screen child abuse, graphic descriptions of injury from said child abuse, referenced homophobia, and a sprinkling of some homophobic slurs (directed towards both bev and richie), and referenced domestic violence in the later half

Richie isn’t home.

That’s the first thing that rings in Beverly’s mind as she scales the side of Richie’s window and raps upon the glass. There’s no answer, no lump on the bed, even though it’s nearing midnight and Bev has never seen him out past 11. Through the haze of her blurred vision, she lands back on the unkempt lawn and works out a plan B through the gaping hole of another, barely swallowed shudder of a sob. Eddie’s only a few blocks away, easy enough on bike.

It’s funny. She didn’t even bike to Richie’s. She just ran.

So she runs again, looking behind her back every few moments to ensure no one is following her; she’s off like a rocket, hugging close to fences and ducking between cars and trees to try and blend into the shadows. In no time at all, at least not long enough to fully even her gasping breath, Eddie’s house comes into view, with Sonia’s car long untouched in the driveway and its convenient tree right in front of Eddie’s own bedroom window.

It’s easy enough to climb, thank God, because the thought of seeing Eddie brings up a fresh wave of tears she has to fight back. And God, it _ hurts _ . All she wanted was to see her boys, her _ family _, just to ease the pain of another day. Because she loves them, more than anything, and hates the emptiness that yawns inside her like It’s mouth, like the flashes she sees in the back of her eyes when she’s alone, like the screaming on the edges of her hearing, like--

Bev slips on a branch and falls a foot, another bough catching her painfully. Her palms scrape against the bark, her bruised arm catches on the branch above her, and she has to bite her tongue until it bleeds to keep from screaming.

She takes a moment to rest. To take stock. Like counting on her fingers, but worse.

  1. Scraped knees and hands. Fine, happens all the time.
  2. Sore ass. That’ll go away too, she’s fallen out of trees a laughable amount of times.
  3. Sore shoulder, as well, from where she forgot to let go.
  4. Finger-shaped bruises all along the span of her forearm, a belt-shaped welt on her upper arm.
  5. Her throat feels pretty shitty, too.
  6. Black eye, not fully bruised yet, but swelling. Not yet bad enough that she can’t see. (There’s a first time for all sorts of injuries.)

She manages to catch her breath amidst her crying. It’s hard work, with how fast her heart is beating, but every time she wants to crack open like a shell and cry, she just tamps it down under her heel and swallows the lump in the back of her throat. It’s okay. It’s okay. She’ll be with Eddie soon enough.

She continues on her climb, keeping her lips pressed tightly together to keep any stray pained groans from escaping. On its closest limb, she reaches out to rap her nails against Eddie’s window, pulling back to breath for a moment. When he doesn’t answer, she knocks again. The bed rustles.

She almost cries again when a hand shoots out to flick on the bedside lamp. Eddie crawls out of bed looking rather worse for wear, his hair matted nearly upright on one side of his head, pajamas rumpled and wrinkled. He looks through the window with fear in his large eyes -- at least until he sees Beverly’s face peeking back at him. She sees him cycle through surprise, happiness, and, when she feels him zero in on her tear soaked, blackened cheek, worry. And, shockingly, anger.

He opens the window as quickly as he dares, reaching out his arms to let Beverly climb over the sill and stumble into them. He sets her on the bed for “just a moment, Bev, promise promise,” quickly locking shaky pinkies with her as he sets off across the hall to the bathroom. She smiles, watery, and begins to cry. But it’s easier this time. This crying doesn’t hurt. She cries because she’s cared for. She cries because she didn’t have to say a single word for Eddie to come to her rescue.

She nearly jumps into the air when the sheets next to her move of their own accord.

“Eds?” a sleep-soaked voice wheezes out, fluffy black hair peeking out from under the duvet. A fumbling hand slaps against Eddie’s nightstand, locking on a pair of glasses that get pulled into the pile of blankets. Beverly quickly wipes her eyes free of tears, clamping a hand over her mouth to staunch her breathy sobs. After a moment of finangling, Richie’s face peeps out, glasses and all, and take Beverly in with hardly a look of surprise.  
  
“Are you here for the threesome?” he asks.

Eddie comes back before Bev can start crying again. As soon as he finds Richie and Bev having some sort of staring contest, he flushes quick right up to his ears and down his chest.

“Oh, nuts,” he murmurs, looking to Bev, who shrugs and looks vaguely amused underneath her fucked up face, and then to Richie, who makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger before mashing his other pointer into it. Eddie throws a towel at him.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he says as he sits next to Beverly on his bed, finding something within himself to sound bashful. Richie, for once, keeps his mouth shut. He pulls her face into his palm so he can closer inspect her bruised eye, and smiles weakly as her eyebrows thread together. Still, she looks at peace with his sweaty hand on her face, so he can only assume she’s okay.

“It’s alright,” she manages, and her voice comes out cracked and weak. Eddie quickly darts down to inspect her throat, and swallows hard as he sees the beginning of a bruise blooming on her pale skin. He looks up at Beverly, inquiring silently, and she worries her lip between her teeth before pulling up the long sleeve of her pajama shirt and showing her the other bruises that have already darkened.

Richie whistles, for lack of a better reaction. “You know, I still have a baseball bat in the garage if you wanna--” he starts, but Eddie quickly shushes him.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Bev laughs, but it’s hollow. “‘M sorry I woke you up, I just…” Her expression turns sour. She wills the quake in her jaw away, but it’s hard.

“Bev,” Eddie says softly, reaching over to his mini armada of medical supplies to pull some ice chips from a bowl and a cold compress. “I get it. Felt like you had nowhere else to go.” He wraps them both up in towels -- the one he threw at Richie is still slapped over his head -- and presses the compress gingerly along Bev’s arm, and the ice chips against her eye. She sighs happily at the cool.

“I tried going to Richie first, actually,” she hums, and Richie gasps, far too loud for the situation.

“Little ol’ me, Miss Marsh?” he crows, reaching out to ruffle her hair. Eddie tries to get him to shut up again, but then he sees the smile Beverly is cracking and quickly quiets himself. It doesn’t take much for Richie to send Bev into a full laughing fit, snorting into her palm even as she cringes from wrinkling the skin of her cheek.

And it’s good. Suddenly everything is okay. Alvin Marsh is passed out drunk on the recliner in front of the TV, Sonia Kaspbrak is conked out on Ambien as she takes the full space of a bed made for two, Margaret and Wentworth Tozier went to bed unaware of where their son ended up for the night, and still, as Eddie’s careful fingers replace the ice on Beverly’s eye, in the soft lamplight, Beverly has never felt better. She tells her boys as such.

“I mean, I would have preferred not getting punched in the eye,” she admits, and Eddie flinches at her blunt words. “But sometimes that’s the shit you go through. It’s all okay when I’m with you guys.” She hisses as Eddie cleans her palms and knees with antiseptic, and now that he’s hunkered down on wrapping up her skin, Richie has an opening.

“You probably know this,” he starts with a dramatic flourish of his wrist. “But parents don’t hit their kids. They don’t give them fake pills and fake asthma, either,” and he directs that last bit at Eddie pointedly, who pauses in his dutiful splinter-extraction and flips Richie off. “They’re supposed to like, give you a quarter for the candy store on the corner and tell you to come home before dinnertime and shit.” His expression goes a little hazy, distant, but it snaps back into place so fast Bev wonders if she imagined it. “‘_ Brush yer teeth before bedtime, sport _,’” he tacks on in a Voice that doesn’t sound like anything but Richie, but makes Beverly crack a smile nonetheless.

“Call me crazy, dumbass, but parents don’t fucking ignore their kids, either,” Eddie pipes up, before pecking a tiny kiss on the palm he just bandaged. “Do your parents even know where you are, Trashmouth? And not just right now, I mean, like, at any time.” And Richie actually looks affronted for a moment, before it melts into a general irritation.

“Fuck off, dude, what do you know?” he bites, and Beverly is starting to wonder if she should say something, call off the tension rising between them. She knows they wouldn’t hurt her, and she has never been quite _ afraid _ of the yelling, never so much as her dad’s, but it was still uncomfortable. Jarring. “Just ‘cause your mom can’t _ not _ keep track of you doesn’t mean that’s the only thing parents _ do _.”

“My dad doesn’t know where I am,” Bev adds, unsure. “He only asks if he’s around or.” She stumbles on the word for a moment. “Sober.” She swallows, a bit too hard for her sore neck. “Which isn’t a lot.”

Richie looks uncomfortable. “So that makes two out of three. Normal parent behavior, for sure.”

“We’ve already established Bev’s dad is a_ shitty person _ , Rich,” Eddie spits, flapping his hand out to gesture widely at the state of her body. “Don’t use him to one-up me. This shouldn’t even be a fucking conversation, we _ all _ have shitty parents. Or have you not noticed?”

Bev swallows, looks at her knees. They’re plastered over with the large, cloth Band-Aids that Eddie hoards, the ones that don’t come off without a bit of hair loss and stickiness. She kind of wants to rip it off, just to feel it, but she knows Eddie would splutter at the waste. So she doesn’t. She picks at a scab on her left elbow instead.

“Bill’s parents don’t talk to him, Mikey doesn’t fucking _ have _ parents, Stan’s dad is a fucking lunatic, and I dunno what the _ fuck _ Ben’s parents are doing, but it’s _ definitely _ not taking care of him, you know, ‘cause _ I _ was the one who told him how to change his fucking dressings if you _ remember _\--” 

“_ Eds _\--”

“You’re gonna wake up Sonia,” Beverly cuts in, and both Eddie and Richie’s mouths snap shut with an audible clatter. Eddie makes a silent little chopping motion with his hands, clearly annoyed, and Richie barely manages to choke down a guffaw.

But, even in the light moments, Bev can see the questions on both their faces. It’s usually not this bad, always below the neck, never anywhere she can’t hide. He was just a little too drunk, she was just a little too familiar, the world was just a little too unfair.

Eddie reaches up to stroke Bev’s uninjured cheek again. Richie shifts so he’s halfway leaning on her back, bracketing her in with his height and his warmth.

“He found out,” she breathes after a moment, working up the courage. “About the. The stuff at school.” She takes a deep gulp of air, filling her lungs up so they ache, forcing her heart to skip and go into double-time. “The shit you see all the time, Rich.”

“Your dad called you a faggot?” Richie asks incredulously. Bev barks out a shocked laugh, shaking her head where it’s resting against his chest.

“No. Close enough, I guess. He used to grab me by the hair, but I don’t have that anymore, so he grabbed me by the throat this time. Knocked me around and told me no daughter of his was gonna be some bull-dyke, whoring around and getting fucked up like that. I guess he saw all the shit in the stalls before I could scratch them out.” Her voice is starting to peter out, so she stops, pressing her lips tightly together.

Richie and Eddie, somehow, cuddle closer to her. Eddie tucks his head under her chin as he carefully burrows into her side, an arm slung across her body, and Richie wraps his arms around her waist, mouth pressed into her shoulder. When they touch her like this, she doesn’t feel fear. She just feels… good. Right. She’s in the embrace of people who love her, who don’t see her as a shattered, shoddy recreation of the past. They don’t see her as broken, as incomplete, as unlovable.

“I’m tired,” she finishes, her voice hardly anything but a croak. Eddie nods and kicks his first aid kit off the side of the bed, sticking his tongue out as it clatters to the floor. Careful this time, he peels the damp towels off Beverly’s arm and gently removes the dripping one from her eye before tilting them all backwards into bed. Bev ends up lovingly sandwiched between two of the six people she loves more than anything else. Eddie and Richie grab hands over her waist, barring her in securely. Eddie’s kid bed is hardly enough for him and Richie, let alone him, Richie, and Beverly, but she and him are tiny compared to Trashmouth, so they snuggle close together while Richie unites them all like an overlarge, hairy bow on the world's ugliest present.

And even then, Bev gets the best sleep she’s ever had.

\---

She wakes up early enough that it’s still somewhat dark out. Eddie is beginning to stir beside her, presumably to kick them out before his mother finds them, so she allows her head to sink deeper into the pillow, lets her eyes flutter closed to enjoy the last dregs of sleep. Richie’s nose pokes her neck, his breath warm on her shoulder, and it takes her a moment to realize that he’s awake, too.

“Mornin’,” she offers, throat scratchy with sleep. Eddie wrinkles his nose in his slumber. Beverly feels Richie smile at the sight.

“This isn’t morning, Red,” he grumbles back. “These are still sleeping hours.”

“Not to Eddie, they aren’t,” she says, and just then, Eddie takes the opportunity to wake up fully, his little mouth splitting wide into a yawn that takes up most of his face. Richie lets out a pleased sound.

“You gotta leave soon,” he says matter-of-factly, even though he’s inches away from having a chunk of Bev’s hair in his mouth. “Ma’s gonna wake up in an hour or so.” He crawls away from the three-person warmth, stretching out with his back to the window as he leaves Richie and Bev in bed together, spooning awkwardly without Eddie to complete them.

Bev rolls over in a silent rebellion, throwing an arm over Richie's sheet-covered waist. Eddie groans behind her, which only makes her dig her nose further into Richie's collarbone.

"_ Rich _," Eddie whines, clearly distressed that he's enabling Bev so, and Richie’s laugh is pressed into the top of her head; she feels his huffing breaths on her scalp. But it’s gone in the next moment as Richie sits up and throws his arms out in an exaggerated stretch, making a choked noise as his back pops and crunches. He finds his shorts and socks on the floor, ignoring Eddie’s offer of fresh clothes, and stuffs his feet, sockless, into his Chucks, the heels bent forward even as his shoelaces remain untied. Eddie sighs, low and long.

Bev really, sincerely, does not want to get up. Eddie’s covers are cozy tucked around her, his scent warm in her nose, and ignoring the outside world seems like the most pleasing thing she’s ever heard of. Her face is still throbbing, and every other part of her body aches in a bone-deep, cutting way; the mere thought of acting like everything is okay, like she can go home and get ready for school _ like this _ makes her uncomfortably sick. No, this is something that she can’t just brush off. There will be questions she doesn’t want to answer, attention she doesn’t want, and, if anyone manages to put two and two together, yet more ammunition to use against her in the hallways. She has her boys to protect her, but not at home. At home, her only protection is a weak bathroom lock.

Richie’s hand startles her, but it’s big and comforting on her back as he helps sit her up in bed.

“My parents are out today,” he mentions, seemingly offhand, but the crooked smile he offers is like an extended hand. “I say we stop by Kroger, get some ice cream, rent some flicks? A good ol’ Tozier-Marsh pity party.”

Bev thinks of Richie’s empty home, his dark, messy bedroom, his stash he keeps in his black hole of a closet; thinks of the tiny couch the seven of them have, time and time again, barely fit on and made it work despite the odds; thinks of the shoddy TV set that statics out half the time; and she smiles. As devoid of a family’s love as it is, it’s more of a home to Bev than her own. Bill’s house is the same; vacant, loveless, and so full of life when the seven of them are there to make it so.

“It’s a date, Mr. Tozier,” she says with a cheeky smirk, letting Richie pull her out of bed and onto her feet. He twirls her for good measure, dipping her slightly, and looks to Eddie as if seeking out his approval. Eddie only shakes his head, smiling despite himself. “You better make it worth my while, or I’ll find someone else to spend my days with!”

“More like smoke your days with,” Eddie points out, and Richie drops Bev’s waist to scamper over to him, tugging him by the shoulders to try and dance with him. Eddie pulls away, hissing like a cat, and Beverly politely looks away and shoves on her flats when she hears Richie make kissy noises. She walks to the window when she hears Eddie make some back.

Richie joins her by the window a moment later, looking significantly redder and rather well-kissed. She wiggles her eyebrows at him, he sticks out his tongue at her, and, after a quick hug from Eddie, the two are stepping out onto the windowsill and into the tree, carefully climbing down it. Richie keeps a hand around Bev’s waist as he guides her down. She leans into him as soon as they’re on flat ground.

He takes her hand in return.

* * *

It’s easy to fall back into the old routines.

Beverly teases Richie like it hasn’t been 27 years since they were last together, poking her chopsticks into his mouth, taking his drink-addled hands in hers and smacking his large palm against his own face, and, back at the townhouse, rummaging through his luggage and pulling out a suitably large hoodie that she immediately bundles herself in. It’s somehow the same smell she familiarized herself with as a child; smoke, weed, the slight salt of sweat, and, ridiculously, the same cologne he wore at 13. It was always sweeter than she anticipated from him, almost like a perfume, but it smelled good and homely even then, so Bev tugs the neck of the hoodie up to her nose, letting herself get lost in the scent.

It evokes a memory from the tea-leaf remains of Bev’s childhood; the day she spent with Richie, skipping school and burrowing into the safety of his bedsheets. Something about movies, bickering about how the only movie they could rent was a shitty romcom. She wonders what brought her there, alone with him. That aspect has yet to come to her.

When Richie comes downstairs at the behest of her sleepless, 1 AM text, Bev pours the two of them generous glasses of whiskey from the unmanned bar that she’s stationed herself at. He takes it from her with a sigh of thanks, pulling out the barstool next to her and sinking into it.

“This is fucking delusional,” Richie murmurs into his glass. “If we die, I’m gonna be so mad.”

The statement brings an uncomfortable pull in Bev’s gut, and she burrows her nose into the hood of her stolen jacket. _ All she wants is a little fucking comfort. _

“You know, I—” she starts, but Eddie is clattering down the stairs, loud and obtrusive as always, bustling over to the bar and fussing with a backpack he brought down with him. Her mouth snaps shut, taking in the aged face of her childhood best friend, and she silently pours another glass. Eddie makes a face as he approaches her, but he takes it anyway, and knocks it back — not with experience, but like he wants to pretend he has any. Richie thumps him on the back.

It’s only then, looking back to the granite bar top, that Bev truly thinks to notice Eddie’s backpack. It’s open, spilling out a rather impressive collection of first aid, and she stops to wonder why he brought it with him.

“I wanted to ask you something, Bev,” Eddie says, sounding a little raw as he stops coughing. She hums in response, tucking some loose hair behind her ear. Eddie settles himself into the barstool on the opposite side of her, so he and Richie are tucking her safely between them. “I saw some. Stuff. On your arm. Can I see it?”

Ah.

“It’s—” _ Alright _ , Bev tries to say, but it’s not. She knows that. She thinks of her father, the night he went too far and she went to the only people she felt could help her, the memory suddenly clear and burning. She thinks of the way she fell asleep between them, completely and utterly safe. So she shucks off Richie’s hoodie and her blazer underneath it, exposing the finger- and belt-shaped bruises that are so similar to the ones she had as a child. It starts up something raw and violent in her heart — against herself, against her father, a _ why didn’t I realize _ , a _ why did I let it happen again _. Richie sucks in a breath beside her. Eddie whimpers.

“I have, um,” Eddie starts. “_ Shit, _ what do I have for bruises—” He lunges for his backpack, digging through it with a fervor only he could have. Always the medic, he was. Is.

Richie takes Bev’s hand. Nonsensically, she feels like she’s in a hospital, where Eddie’s frantic bedside manner is shit and Richie is her to-be-bereaved sweetheart, begging her to _ hold on, hold on _— 

Maybe she should have gotten checked for head trauma. A fist to the temple may not rival a perfume bottle to the face, but it’s certain to have its consequences.

“Are you safe?” he asks gently as Eddie resurfaces with some Arnica gel. She nods, tries not to hiss as he rubs the cream into her skin.

“I left my ring with him,” she murmurs, wiggling her bare ring finger. “Threw some shit at him and stormed out. I can only hope I fucked him up good. As soon as this is over, I’m filing for a fucking divorce.”

Eddie starts wrapping up her forearms with medical gauze. It’s unnecessary, overkill, but it feels oddly like safety. Richie throws an arm around her shoulders, tugging her close. 

But it’s home. Despite the overhanging fear of a life cut short, she would rather die here than at the hands of Tom, and it’s _ home _. It’s less so that she grew up in Derry — it’s that this is where she found her family. It’s home because the Losers made it so.

And it’s home _ now _ because they’re here with her.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! comments mean a lot!


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